DURING RECENT months of speculation about President and Mrs. George W. Bush’s future home, one Internet writer reported that Laura Bush was checking out houses in Preston Hollow, a town north of Dallas “with views of lakes and mountains.”

So much for accuracy on the worldwide web. But even this off-the-wall dispatch had an element of truth. It was announced last week that a house at 10141 Doria Place in Preston Hollow has been purchased for the Bushes as their post-presidential residence.

PRESTON HOLLOW, a long-established neighborhood, is notable mainly for views of the Dallas cityscape around Northwest Highway and Preston Road; it’s just north of the Park Cities and west of North Park shopping center.

Of course there are some lakes in the area, but nary a mountain for hundreds of miles.

I am familiar with the Preston Hollow street where George and Laura Bush lived from December,1988 until January, 1995, when he was associated with the Texas Rangers.

MY FRIENDS Vee and Allen Maxwell, who owned a farm near Little Mound that they used as a rural retreat until a few years ago, have their main residence on a Preston Hollow street, Northwood.

When I visited them there during the administration of the first President Bush, they pointed out the Secret Service cars parked in front of a house a couple of blocks down the street. The younger Bush’s ranch-style house was under surveillance.

George W., Laura and family lived there until he became governor of Texas in 1995.

IN JANUARY, the Bushes will move into a new home about a mile northwest of their former Northwood residence, dividing their time between Dallas and their ranch house at Crawford.

The house on Daria Place, a cul-de-sac, is described as a one-story, 8,501-square-foot light red brick that was built in 1959.

A smaller house at 10151 Daria Place has recently changed hands, and may be used as Secret Service headquarters, according to reports.

The Dallas Morning News described a mix of excitement and concern among neighbors at the prospect of an ex-president moving in next door. Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks, oilman T. Boone Pickens and Ross Perot have large houses in the neighborhood.

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FOLLOWING UP on the discussion here last week of the Civilian Conservation Corps and other New Deal agencies that were created to fight the Great Depression in the 1930s, be it noted that the Texas Forestry Museum in Lufkin has a special CCC exhibit on display through next September.

Crosscut, the museum’s newsletter, interviewed three former CCC workers for its current issue.

Three Lufkin men, Floyd Mize, Henry Morehead and Charles Kimball, each spent a year with the CCC and each took advantage of the opportunities it gave to work during a time when jobs were very scarce.

THE HARD WORK and strict discipline prepared them to serve in the Army during World War II, and all three vividly remember the lessons learned in the CCC, the story said.

Morehead and Campbell both had long careers with the Southland Paper Mill and Floyd became a college teacher and grant writer at South Dakota State University.

All three think their CCC work meant something to the country, and they apparently take pride in the fact that some of the roads and buildings they built are still being used.

IN AN APPEARANCE on Meet the Press Sunday, President-Elect Barack Obama referred to President Roosevelt’s challenge during the Great Depression of the 1930s, saying there is no doubt that FDR “had to create an entire economic structure that had entirely collapsed.” But there was up to 30 percent unemployment across the country then, and “we didn’t have many of the social safety nets that emerged out of the New Deal,” he pointed out.

And this was President-Elect Obama’s response to a question about his plans:

“Fortunately, as tough as times are right now — and things are going to get worse before they get better — there is a convergence between circumstances and agenda. The key for us is making sure that we jump-start that economy in a way that doesn’t just deal with the short term, doesn’t just create jobs immediately, but also puts us on a glide path for long-term, sustainable economic growth.

“And that’s why I spoke in my radio address on Saturday about the importance of investing in the largest infrastructure program — in roads and bridges and other traditional infrastructure — since the building of the federal highway system in the 1950s.”

Considering how the world has moved on, can’t we assume that there will be no more CCCs, WPAs or other alphabet agencies, and private contracts will be let for infrastructure work? If current experience is any guide, the contractors’ crews will be mostly Hispanic.

sgreene@tatertv.com Sarah Greene Archives